Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c15.s3.22

c15.s3.22

The new theory is used by Vasubandhu² to discredit the doctrine of the existence of a person (*pudgala*) as maintained by the Vātsīputrīyas against the more orthodox denial of any person. The denial of a soul is based on the absence of any cause which would lead us to accept the idea as necessary, just as for instance the sense organs are necessary to explain perception. Moreover, any self which really exists must be something over and above the impermanent factors of empiric individuality. But such a self, which must be uncaused, eternal, and without change, would be without activity or practical efficiency (*arthakriyākāritva*) which is the essential characteristic of reality. The Vātsīputrīyas object to this train of thought that the person is certainly implicated in the elements of empiric individuality or personal life, but though implicated is separate, and cannot be said either to be the same as, or different from, the personal elements, just as fire is neither the same as, nor different from, the burning stick, and yet is something more than it. They support this contention by the facts of action, e. g. of walking, which imply a personal agent, and of consciousness which imply an actor. Vasubandhu objects that the appearance of continuity in motion is a misleading result of analogy from one's own experience; what is true is that there is a series of new productions of motion in different places just as in the case of moving fire. Similarly there is in consciousness nothing more than the fact of a series of thought moments which are in causal relation. Memory is explained by this fact; it requires no agent, merely an earlier experience, and arises when suitable conditions of attention, freedom from pain, &c., are present.